


Great as the sea is your distress

by steveelotaku



Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Language, F/F, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Johnny Silverhand Being An Asshole, Lapsed Catholic Judy, Romance, mostly canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:07:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29011002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steveelotaku/pseuds/steveelotaku
Summary: Judy hasn't been to church in years, but her guardian angel takes the form of a scrappy 'borged-up streetkid with a big mouth and a bigger heart.If only her grief didn't feel as big as the ocean, and if the dead rockerboy in V's head could keep his mouth shut once in a while.
Relationships: Judy Alvarez/Female V
Comments: 7
Kudos: 96





	Great as the sea is your distress

To what can I compare you, O daughter of Jerusalem? What example can I show you for your comfort, virgin daughter of Sion? For great as the sea is your distress; who can heal you? (Lamentations 2:13)

The epitaph sits on a forgotten, worn card next to the niche of Evelyn Parker. It's old enough that Judy actually recognizes its source--Laguna Bend. It was a sympathy card found in the town's church; the last time she'd seen one was decades ago.

Judy isn't sure how it all happened, and she frankly doesn't care as she scoops it up, not wanting it to be burned or swept up by uncaring cleaning robots or maintenance staff. There's something so cold and clinical about the Columbarium. Not that she'd want Evelyn's brain to be property of Arasaka, but left in a forgotten little graveyard, with a pauper's grave, to spell out that she died doing the right thing? It feels all too much like a typical Night City goodbye--impersonal, bloody, and empty. There'd been no Trauma Team swooping in like corporate fixers, no Mox members paying respect. 

Only V. Only her. Only V had cared enough to drop by.

What kind of town was this?

Night City. That was the hard, dirty, ugly answer. Two words filthier than anything she'd seen applied to a joytoy or a BD editor. 

There was no funeral, no service, no memory, no drink in her honour at a place like Afterlife. What kind of drink would Evelyn be, anyway?

1 ounce peach schnapps  
1 ounce blue curaçao  
2 ounces vodka   
Cirrus Nix

Bright blue, just like her hair. Bright blue like the mood, the feeling, every little emotion that Judy associated with Evelyn.

Not red. Not the harsh, ugly fucking red that had been the end of it all.

The Porsche that pulls up outside surprises her, but that's hardly all that surprising. Her life is a series of surprises, and the outrageously expensive and antique car being driven by V tells her everything she needs to know.

“Hey Jude,” calls V from the car. “I figured you’d want a ride back. I know you said not to come, but---”

“Hey, _calabacina_ ,” Judy teases, sauntering over to the car, a lightness in her step at V’s words. It’s strange, honestly, seeing how much she’s changed over a few short weeks—the aviators, the jacket, the leather pants—it all flatters V’s figure in ways that she can’t even begin to describe—but it’s not quite the V she saw in an old workout shirt and shorts, smelling faintly of cheap booze and desperation.

“I appreciate it. You come from a concert or something?”

V blushes.

“I guess you could say that. We’re, uh, planning something.”

“We?” Judy asks, rolling her eyes. “Don’t tell me—”

V sighs and smacks her implant, which tells Judy all she needs to know.

“Samurai is doing one more show,” V explains. “If Johnny can not be a dick for five minutes.”

Judy laughs, a soft, musical arpeggio playing off the faint hint of tears lingering on her eyelashes.

“Yeah, I heard that, smartass,” V mutters. “Not you, Jude. Silverdick up here.”

As they drive, Judy looks out the window, sadly.

She’s gonna miss the good times here, when she leaves.

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V’s heart always skips a beat when she sees Judy, and she supposes it’s always been that way since she first saw her hunched over a desk editing a braindance. She isn’t sure _why_. It’s not like Judy _isn’t_ cute and gorgeous beyond all reason, but V’s met plenty of gorgeous guys and girls who have never set her on fire quite the way that Judy has. Maybe it’s that shared poverty. Maybe it’s that hope that there’s something better out there, and that Judy’s hope gives a promise that feels so much better than cold hard eddies, as much as she hates to admit it.

_Naïve, impulsive, reckless to a fault—V, I’m telling you, I don’t know why the fuck you’re moving in with this girl. You’re not even in a band with her and you’re already picking out the matching towels and swimwear?_

_Stow it, Johnny. You don’t get to make this call. Besides. Pot. Kettle. Black._

Johnny Silverhand can’t stand her, and V supposes that’s another massive turn-on. There’s something about getting the old rockerboy riled up, even more than when a corp pulls some bullshit on the news. Maybe it’s because she’s _too_ good, that she reminds him of times that are way too gone, and people he’s shoved way too out of reach. V isn’t sure—that little confessional on top of Johnny’s unmarked grave makes her more than a little too uncomfortable.

On some level, she wishes Johnny would just wake up and smell the instant noodles—Judy’s everything Johnny would be without the massive ego or, as he so delicately put it, “impressive cock.”

V highly doubts Johnny’s claim, but Kerry is enthusiastic enough, so she’s frankly not sure.

“Got a lot on your mind, love?” Judy asks, her voice hitching slightly on what might be the ghost of a tear, or some bit of dried anxiety stuck in her throat.

“Could ask the same. Johnny’s not nearly as much of a load as you might think.”

It’s a lie, and both women know it—the chip’s a problem, and one way or another V needs help neither of them can get easily.

“So, where’d you get the ride?” Judy asks, changing the subject.

“It’s Johnny’s. Found it in a crate while looking for his old pal Adam Smasher. And by looking for, I mean, looking to put a bullet in the last part of him that isn’t a fucking tin can.”

“You’re seriously getting this deep in Johnny’s old shit? V. Why.”

“I’ll tell you back home,” V replies, swallowing hard, trying not to look at the hard, almost disappointed look Judy’s giving her. There’s one tattooed hand running through the almost watermelon-green-and-pink hair, and it’s the first hint V gets that no explanation’s gonna be good enough.

Judy’s apartment isn’t spacious. It’s not the worst place in Night City—V’s been there, done that, done people in that—but it’s like a low-rent hotel.

And yet, it feels like home. It _is_ home.

Judy drags her inside only moments after she’s had time to park Johnny’s Porsche.

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“Justify yourself to me,” Judy says, and she means every word of it.

“Ugh, Jude, why can’t you be saying that when we’re wearing a lot less than this?”

_Well, well. Entertainment._

“Fuck off, Johnny!” V screams, aloud, slapping a hand over her mouth in embarrassment.

Judy reaches over and puts her hands on V’s shoulders, softly, lovingly, as if the anger in her eyes is just a passing storm over the waters of her soul’s ocean. She can feel tension, cocked like a loaded gun. She bites her lip and looks into V’s electric eyes, hoping to find a hint of an explanation.

Instead, all she gets are soft tears, the weary, heavy burden of a heart that’s half cyberware and half flesh, someone who might be the poster girl for oncoming cyberpsychosis if Judy even believed for a second that it was real, and not just the product of systemic abuses and mental illness.

“You’re not killing yourself for Johnny’s sake, are you…?” she asks.

“No…” V says, shaking her head. “I’m already dead...I’m just trying to put my affairs in order…and everyone else’s. I…”

V says nothing further, as if it can’t come out, as if she has nothing left to say.

Judy gets her braindance rig and asks V a question that she barely hears herself ask, and it’s only V’s assenting nod that makes her put the rig on and start syncing up with her once more, like they’d done underwater on the best date Judy ever had.

She sees V standing there, and lets her brain wander, lets her delve deeper into V’s memories. It had felt dangerous underwater, but here, above ground, it just feels like sharp, painful surgery—rough but necessary.

Johnny Silverhand is waiting for her, and she wants to strangle him. This is the swaggering, boastful, misogynistic, shameless idiot—this _terrorist_. This _bastard_ , this limp-dick _legend_ of Night City—what could be more fitting? What could sum up this hellhole better than some loser she could picture catcalling her?

And then he doesn’t.

He just stares at her, and sighs.

“Great, you can finally see me,” he says, brushing back some long, dark locks with the limb that’s his namesake. “You’re getting awfully protective for somebody who can’t protect shit—”

“Shut the fuck up, rockerboy.”

Johnny’s mouth clamps shut in surprise.

“Look, you can’t get mad I’m in your girl all the time,” he says. “I didn’t ask to be doing this. Let’s face it—I’d rather be at Afterlife right now getting good and solidly shitfaced. I’d rather be tearing apart Arasaka with my bare hands—”

V appears and swings a punch at Johnny, who just barely blocks it before he realizes she can’t hurt him, and he sighs.

“I wasn’t scared.”

“Liar,” V spits, sitting down. “Take a fucking seat, Johnny. If you’re going to be part of the rest of my life, _she_ needs to know. Judy is the light of my life, and I’m not letting anything take that from me. Who’s the one who couldn’t protect anyone? Judy did her best—what did you do? Nuke one office building and call it a revolution? The Fourth Corporate War had two sides, Johnny—the fuck did you do about Militech? No, Arasaka had your output, and that was all that mattered.”

“They made her make the very thing that killed her. The thing that killed me. The thing that’s killing you—isn’t making them pay good enough?”

“No, it fucking isn’t! And you _know_ that! I just want to live! At this point, that’s all I want! A happy ending with the one I love! Fuck being a legend! It’s not _worth it anymore if I can’t fix it all!_ ”

Judy’s tears sting V harder than her own broken, malfunctioning neurons.

“So this…this is why, isn’t it?” Judy asks. “You’ve seen too much break…and you want to put it back together.”

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Johnny looks at V, sadly, and pulls off his sunglasses, exposing the all-too-vulnerable eyes he takes so much pain to hide.

He can’t hide it. He punches walls, he throws his imaginary chair across the room, and he clenches his metal hand until it sounds like it’s going to break.

Judy looks between V and Johnny, back and forth between the two, a little confused and a lot worried.

V sighs.

“You hate me for being with her because she reminds you that you’re not perfect,” V says, perhaps a bit too brutally. “Just stop being a dick, Johnny. You told me you were going to work on that.”

There’s a far-off look in Johnny’s eyes, and he sighs deeply.

“Judy,” he says, his voice lowering in what might be a hint of humility seeping in. “I promise, I’m not forcing V to do anything. I realized…”

Words fail him. What explanation could he give that would be good enough? V looks over, though, and he knows he has to try, even if he ends up making things worse. As usual.

“We’re all just ghosts, clinging to the shit that used to matter to us. Realizing no matter what we do, we’re gonna piss people off. I made a fucking mess of things. V’s the only person who ever asked me if I could get a second chance. She’s the only person who thought I deserved it. ‘Cept maybe Kerry, but Kerry would roll over like a puppy no matter what. And she gave me hell for being in her head. First thing she did was try to suppress me with pills. Then she bitched at me. And then, seeing what a fucking mess I’d made of things, asked me what she could do to help.”

Judy’s anger fades. She starts to chuckle, her tears and eyeliner drying into oddly mirthful streaks, and her smile, warm as the sunrise, widens into a grin.

“V…it’s so you.”

“Judy, I promise you, this was all my idea,” V says, a bit too embarrassed and a bit too quickly. “I just…I’ve seen too many people broken by this place. I know you have too, but I just…I want to keep fixing things while I’ve got time left.”

“I believe you,” Judy says, sighing softly. “If only because I know just what it’s like to walk headlong into hopeless causes and hoping I’ll pull through at the last second. I think Johnny knows what I’m talking about, as much as he’d like to say otherwise.”

Johnny mutters something that sounds oddly like “razzle-frazzle smartassed fruit-by-the-foot-haired BD smut artist”, a phrase that sounds ridiculous coming from him, but oddly sounds like proof she’s gotten to him.

V makes a mental note to look up just what the hell a ‘fruit-by-the-foot’ is later.

Johnny is going to be absolutely insufferable later, V knows, but that’s not gonna be an issue for a while. Right now, she’s convinced Judy, at least a bit, that she knows what she’s doing, a thing that she seems to have trouble doing with anyone not named Regina. She knows she’s wet behind the ears and has been cramming a lot into less than a month, but she kind of wishes Rogue wouldn’t look at her like an excitable puppy being Baby’s First Merc.

“V,” Judy begins, pulling her into a warm embrace. “You don’t have to fix everybody. My little _calabacina_ , you’re just too sweet…try to save a little for yourself, hmm?”

“Valerie…” V gasps. “Call me Valerie, just for tonight…”

“Oh, great,” Johnny grouses. “Here we go on the late-night telenovela again. And I thought the shit I watched on the screen back in the Mexican conflict was cheesy. Yeah, extra fuckin’ queso tonight, I’m gonna be sick…”

“Come see Samurai. It’ll be tomorrow night. Red Dirt bar. Cheap as fuck, you’ll love it,” V says, pleading.

“I dunno, Valerie…” Judy says, V’s secret name dancing playfully on her tongue. “Rough place like that might get you a little dented…sure you wouldn’t rather go diving?”

“I’ll go diving tonight. I don’t care where. I just want to be with you, and then tomorrow I’d love if you could come see us.”

“Alright. Can’t say no to you. But tonight, you’re all mine. So rockerboy, go catch a nap or something, ‘kay?”

“Trust me, the last thing I want to do is watch you two go diving for clams,” Johnny says.

“That was barely even a single entendre, Johnny,” V says, rolling her eyes and sticking her tongue out. “Maybe if you’d be more upfront about being a total bisexual disaster people’d find you more tolerable. I mean, who takes a guy like Kerry to a male strip club and then fondly reminisces decades later about a guy’s ass? I’m beginning to think ‘creative input’ meant a lot fucking more when you were in Samurai.”

Johnny’s blush reminds V oddly of a Maelstrom ganger’s eye implants.

“Fuck you, V. And I mean that in the most loving possible fucking way. Get bent, sincerely and with much love, Johnny Silverhand.”

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They go diving back in Laguna Bend again, firstly because it’s got so much left to explore, but secondly, because they can just stay the night at the cottage again. In Judy’s book, anywhere with lighting, running water, and a coffeemaker is home.

V’s hard pressed to disagree—there’s something refreshing about being outside of Night City. Having been a Streetkid all her life, as much as the shining towers of the city tempt her, she’s learned that they cast long, ugly shadows full of grit and bugs.

Maybe there was good under that pavement, once. Maybe there was something in the city before the corpos took over, made it all dirty—but V isn’t sure, and V isn’t sure she can care when Judy looks at her. She gets it now, why Judy wants out—why she wants to run away.

Maybe there _is_ hope there, and if there is, it sure as hell looks a lot like Judy.

They dive together, together as one, linked mentally, Johnny Silverhand far behind an orange pill, and they meet under the waves, beneath an ocean depth of new certainties.

Laguna Bend is frozen in time, and always will be—comforting, in a way, unlike Night City’s constant here today, gone tomorrow. It’s something V finds herself wishing, constantly—to take one moment of happiness and just live in it, forever. That’s worth more than any legend status, any named cocktail at Afterlife.

The water is kind of cold, but the wetsuit cuts the worst of it, so it’s really no worse than a dip in a mildly unheated pool, or when the hot water runs out at Judy’s place. No, the real warmth comes from knowing she’s sharing Judy’s thought stream, to know that she’s not alone anymore.

She doesn’t know whose loneliness she worries about more; her own, or Judy’s. Both seem equal in a city whose only memorable figures almost all died in a blaze of glory 50 years ago.

This time, V’s determined to put some things to rest.

“Where are we going tonight, Valerie?”

“To church,” V responds.

“Wait, seriously? Bleh.”

“I…look…”

“Were you the one who—” Judy begins, but trails off.

“It took me like five hundred eddies, but I got a sympathy card off the ‘net. Vintage Laguna Bend. Apparently, they’re collector’s items. I knew Kerry Eurodyne was going to visit Johnny Silverhand’s niche, so—”

“Wait. Hold the fucking phone. You had _Kerry Eurodyne_ deliver a card for someone he never knew? And Johnny Silverhand has a niche at the Columbarium?!”

“Robert John Linder does,” V says, teasingly. “Johnny Silverhand is buried in a landfill. Robert John Linder is honoured.”

“Kerry did that so nobody would think ‘hey, that’s that dead terrorist,’ right?”

“Pretty much.”

Swimming into the church, she takes Judy’s hand and holds it.

“Do you, Judy, take Valerie to be your—”

“Of course!” Judy says, laughing. “Geez, and here I was screaming at the revelation when I was a kid.”

“In hindsight, the fact you prioritized hockey and mechanics over anything like dolls and found yourself wanting to spend all your time with girls _might_ have been a clue.”

Judy goes silent for a bit, and the memories flow in strong and bittersweet—mostly, Evelyn’s blue hair is what comes to mind. There’s guilt over Maiko. Over everyone who got hurt as a result of resisting the Tyger Claws.

“Jude. You can take a breath, you know,” V says, gently. “We won’t be here much longer. Just gotta put my last things in order and I’m gonna leave the city behind with you.”

“You will?” Judy asks. “Not gonna stay here to burn out bright with Johnny?”

“I’m gonna get him outta my head, first. Then I’ll go with you.”

“And if you can’t—”

“Then he’s coming on the road with us until we can beg, borrow, steal, or barter for something to get him out and get me patched up.”

Judy pulls V tight, so tight she feels she’ll break.

“You…you’re the best fucking thing to ever happen to me, Valerie.”

They don’t say anything else as they surface. They say basically nothing as they return home, strip down, pour the coffee, and relax.

Nothing more needs to be said.

Judy lets her body do the talking, and for once, the night is quiet.

And the sea is calm.


End file.
